/ '" 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



Its Sipificaiice and Its Scope. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE SIXTH ANNUAL, BANQUET AND RECEPTION 
OF THE NEW YORK ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF CORNELL 
UNIVER.SITY, AT DELMONICO'S, IN NEW YORK CITY, 
MARCH, 31, 1886. 



By CHARLES KENDALL ADAMS, LL.D., 
President of the University. 



ithaca, n. y. 
Andrus & Church, 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY: 



Its Sipificaoce and Its Scope. 



AN ADDRESS 



DEWVERED AT THE SIXTH ANNUAL BANQUET AND RECEPTION 
OF THE NEW YORK ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF CORNELL 
UNIVERSITY, AT DELMONICO'S, IN NEW YORK CITY, 
MARCH, 31, 1886. 



By CHARLES KENDALL ADAMS, LL.D., 
President of the University. 



ithaca, n. y. 
Andrus & Church, 



ll^ 



7 



'A 6 



NEW YORK PUBL, LIBR. 

IN FX-HANQE^ 



CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



ITS SIGNIFICANCE AND ITS SCOPE, 



The Sixth Annual Banquet of the New York Association of 
Cornell Alumni was held at Delmonico's on the evening of March 
31, 1 886. Before the Banquet a Reception was given to Presi- 
dent Adams in the parlors of the hotel. The number seated at 
the tables was one hundred and ninety-eight. Eugene Frayer, 
Esq., President of the Nevy York Association presided. President 
Adams responded to the toast "The University." After the long- 
continued applause which greeted his introduction had subsided, 
he spoke as follows : 

ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT ADAMS. 

Mr. President ; and Sons of Cornell : — 

I am really embarrassed by the heartiness of your 
reception. If I felt your warm and welcome greeting less, I 
should be better able to thank you adequately for it. If I could 
separate from this occasion all thoughts of myself, and in some 
impersonal way join with you simply in your expressions of ad- 
miration and good will for the noble university to which we are 
all so much attached, I should be glad to mingle my heartiest ap- 
plause with yours, and give myself up to the full enjoyments of the 
hour. But to tell you the truth, I come before you to-night with 
conflicting emotions. When I received your invitation to be the 
guest of the evening, my first feeling was akin to what I imagine 
the feeling of one of those African chiefs to be, who is required, 
after his choice to some high office, to go through a very severe 
experimental ordeal. As perhaps you all remember, he is some- 
times required to perform some extraordinary feat ; sometimes it 



— 4 — 

is by running a foot-race while encouraged by the goadings and 
proddings of his friends ; sometimes by wrestling with the 
champion of the ring ; sometimes by walking over heated 
stones ; and sometimes even by being dipped into a river full of 
crocodiles. Now, a foot-race I thought I could undertake, espe- 
cially if there were no Hudson between here and my home ; I 
have seen wrestling done, and I think I could do that ; but to be 
dipped into a river of hungry and open-mouthed crocodiles, it 
seemed to me, would be paying a pretty laige price for an office, 
even in New York. 

Now, I suppose I do not need to tell you that this last opera- 
tion, this crocodile experiment, was precisely the ordeal which 
came up to my mind when I was invited to a banquet by the 
Cornell Alumni of New York.* This was my first conflicting 
emotion. 

My second was when the amiable and enticing words of the 
President and of the Secretary came to shake my considerations 
of prudence. For I could not help remembering the honied assur- 
ances with which those two models of piety and propriety, Alex- 
ander VI. and Caesar Borgia, used to persuade their guests into 
their power. And when I was assured, as I was, that the number 
present was likely to be very large, how could I help remember- 
ing the five hundred thousand that went to see the first railroad 
train, as they said, " to be in at the death " ? 

But I wish to be perfectly honest, and I warn you that I have 
taken the necessary precautions. I have watched the President of 
the New York Alumni very closely, and I have not eaten anything 
till after he has tast^^d it. I have drunken nothing till after he has 
drained his glass. And so I live in the comfort of thinking that 
if I am to die as the result of this indiscretion, I shall at least 
have the satisfaction of seeing him die first. You must all admit 
that that would be ample compensation. 



* After the Resignation of President White a small number of very 
energetic New York Alumni had a meeting and sent a delegate to 
Ithaca to represent to the Board of Trustees that the interests of the 
University would not be subserved by the election of Professor Adams 
to the Presidencv. 



— 5 — 

But, my friends, notwitlistanding the precautionary measures 
I have deemed it necessary to take in coming to the New York 
Alumni, I am really glad to be with you. In spite of all my mis- 
givings, I am really proud to be connected with an institution 
which, while still in its teens, can make such a showing as this. 
Cornell University, if I remember rightly, was formally opened to 
students in 1868, and I submit that if a mother of eighteen can 
show a progeny like this, about two hundred, what will she not 
be able to show in the way of a family by the time she reaches the 
venerable grandmotherhood of some of her contemporaries ? It 
is plain that when that day comes, we shall have to desert the 
provincial East, and seek the more ample accommodations of 
some western town. For suitable accommodations, we shall per- 
haps have to betake us to the more ambitious largeness of Chicago, 
or Kansas City, or even spread ourselves over Minneapolis and 
St. Paul. 

Perhaps there will be an appropriateness in this, as I see that 
our venerable sister on the Sound, by her latest survey has estab- 
lished the geographical position of Cornell as m the West. As I 
read the other day the account of Professor Fisher's remarks at 
the Yale meeting in this city, I was in great doubt how to inter- 
pret his words. I rubbed my eyes, and recalled the days when it 
was a part of my work to examine young geographers for admis- 
sion to college ; and I remembered with what exquisite confidence 
those prodigies of innovation were accustomed to locate Florence 
on the Rhine, Harrisburg on the Hudson, and New Haven on. 
the St. Lawrence. But I am sure no imagination less fertile than 
that of a very Easterri Yale professor ever bi^fore supposed that 
Cornell University was in the West. 

The first explanation that occurred to me, was the possibility 
that Yale College, in her predominant devotion to the classics, 
had never heard of any Ithaca excepting that which used to lie, I 
believe, at the west of Greece. 

There is another possible explanation of this modern geography. 
It was Emerson, I believe, who said of England, '"there is more 
of her than you can see, and therefore she is good as the infinite.'' 
There is more even of Connecticut than you can see (especially if 



— 6 — 

you are near-sighted), and, therefore, why is she not as good as the 
infinite? In fact, to no small part of her people I believe she is 
the infinite. Her borders, therefore, areinfinitely remote, and who 
can blame anyone when he looks far out into the borders and 
fringe of infinity, if he mistakes the Berkshire hills for the Rocky 
Mountains, or the Mighty Housatonic for the mighty Mississippi ? 
Do you not all remember that Cobden told Goldwin Smith that 
not a student at the great Oxford knew the location within 500 
miles even of Chicago ? And did we not hear in a great German 
University in the time of our war that the North never could put 
down the South, because of the difficulty of moving troops along 
the Isthmus of Darien ? After all, knowledge is only relative, and 
why should we hold an American professor to knowing everything? 
But then, it has occurred to me that possibly after all, this dis- 
tinguished professor was simply endeavoring to inculcate a moral 
lesson. He is a distinguished theologian; he has written ever so 
many excellent theologico-historical and historico-theological 
books, and has just given us the very best general history ever 
written in English. So the presumption, after all, is strong that 
he knows what he is talking about. He must have deliberately 
concluded that although the scientific experts persist in regarding 
tiie geographical centre of the country as in Kansas, and, although 
'General Walker, whom some of you have heard of — Mr. Warner, 
I know has* — in that great book of his on the census, tells us that 
the centre of population is some miles west of Cincinnati, not- 
withstanding these facts, I say, Dr. Fisher must have come to the 
^conclusion that the intellectual body of the nation is still lying 
.along the salt water of New England, and, therefore, that every- 
thing beyond the Berkshire Hills and the Mighty Housatonic must 
ibe regarded as in the West. 

It is not becoming in us to quarrel with this conclusion ; but 
we must admit that this geographical peculiarity brings to us with 
it certain enlarged responsibilities. If the viri reverendi \^\vo hold 
the destinies of Yale College in their hand, deliberately determine 



*At the time of the election of President Adams, two votes were 
, cast for Gen. F. A. Walker, of the Boston Institute of Technology, 
■ one of which was supposed to be cast by Mr. Warner, 



— 7 — 

to adapt the sphere of their educational activities to the Nutmeg 
State, why I suppose we shall have to content ourselves chiefly 
with the limited educational sphere that lies beyond. Sad as it 
ma\' be to think of, we shall have to put up for the most part with 
that fragment of the nation which lies between the Mighty Housa- 
tonic and the setting sun. 

Now, if such responsibilities are to be thrust upon us, how are 
we to meet them ? If we have to limit our educational activities 
to the needs of the people west of the Housatonic, how are we to 
do it.? How do our history and our present condition fit us for 
this work ? Are we under bonds to teach one class of studies even 
though all others perish, and the people of this limited west starve 
for knowledge ; or, can we, without violating our obligations to 
the Nation and to the State, teach all of those branches which 
these American people w^est of the Housatonic need to have taught ? 
In other words, to state the question plainly, is Cornell University 
a technical school, with certain ornamental adjuncts, or is it a 
University, with all the rights and obligations that the name im- 
plies.? 

In order to answer these questions I must ask you to indulge 
me in a little bit of sober reminiscence ; for the obligations of 
Cornell, like those of every other important institution, are shaped 
and defined by the circumstances of its organization, and by the 
course of its histoiy. 

Everybody, I think, has been made aware that the beginning of 
Cornell University was the result of the coming together of several 
forces, the controlling ones of which were the Morrill Grant of 
1862, the personality of Ezra Cornell, and the personality of An- 
drew D. White. 

The Morrill Grant was a great act of statemanship passed in the 
midst of the carnage and turmoil of the civil war. Well might 
the enactment of this law remind one of the sale of the Roman 
lands upon which Hannibal's army stood when that great warrior 
was before the gates of the city. 

Tiie purpose of that act was broadly but plainly e.Kpressed. Its 
fundamental intent was embodied in the oft quoted words : "the 
endowment, support, and maintenance of at least one college 



where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scien- 
tific and classical studies, and including military tactics, to teach 
such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the 
mechanic arts in such manner as the legislatures of the States may 
respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical 
education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and pro- 
fessions of life." 

Thus the general government said to the State of New York, 
i'Take this grant, found with it a college in which agriculture and 
the mechanic arts with such other studies as may be practicable 
shall be taught. Take the 990,000 acres and devote them to this 
purpose." Such was the message of the general government. 

Now, the importance of this gift of course depends on its value. 
What was its value ? What was this land scrip worth ? The State 
not having land in its own borders, subject to location, was obliged to 
sell the scrip at the market price. It fixed the price at first at eighty- 
five cents an acre, but very little was sold, for the reason that other 
States had thrown their scrip upon the market, and the market was 
glutted. If there should be great delay, the desirable lands would 
all be located, and the price would go down to next to nothing. 
The price, in consequence of all these efforts, was soon borne 
down to about fifty cents per acre ; and there appeared to be no pos- 
sible way in which the State could realize more than that amount 
from the federal grant. Tiie State could not hold it without loss, it 
could not locate the lands under any circumstances, so it had no 
option. It was obliged to sell the land scrip at the market price' 
whatever that was. The amount realized, therefore, by the State 
from the general government for educational purposes was simply 
and solely the 990,000 acres at from 50 to 85 cents, or an average 
of about 60 cents per acre. I know of no mathematics by which 
the value of the grant, therefore, can be figured out at more than 
six hundred thousand dollars. That amount, then, fairly and 
generously represented the measure of the obligations of Cornell 
University to the federal government. 

Treated and disposed of as the other States treated and dis- 
posed of their scrip, the grant to New York could not possibly 
have been made to amount to more than that sum. Let us, there- 



— 9 — 

fore, in our educational book-keeping put down six hundred 
thousand dollars to the credit of the general government. In other 
words, the institution established under that grant to the State of 
New York was bound to furnish six hundred thousand dollars 
worth of education in the exact spirit of the terms of the grant. 

Now we come to the second factor in the creation of our endow- 
ment. Ezra Cornell, through his energy and enterprise in con- 
nection with the establishment of the electric telegraph in the 
United States, had become suddenly rich. He, and Andrew D. 
White, were in the state senate when the disposition of this grant 
had to be determined. The State had oflered the grant to the 
Peoples' College at Havana, and had said to them, "You may have 
it, if you will establish, independently of this grant, a preliminary 
institution which all told, will cost about $170,000." For three 
years the friends of the Peoples' College endeavored to comply 
with these conditions in vain. And so the State had to make other 
disposition of the federal fund. Tlien Mr. Cornell, encouraged, 
it may well be believed, by the inspiring influence of Mr. White, 
said to the legislature, "If you will adopt a charter acceptable to 
me, I will add $500,000 to the sum granted by the general govern- 
ment. What I desire that charter to be, may be expressed 
in a single sentence, 'I would found an institucion where any per- 
son can find instruction in any study.'" 

Now, you will not fail to observe that this simple but noble state- 
ment embodied within it an idea somewhat different from that 
which had found expression in the federal grant. While it did 
not exclude or in any way antagonize the federal idea, it supple- 
mented that idea by giving to it a far greater breadth, in fact an 
absolute comprehensiveness. lie did not say, I would found an 
institution where any person can find instruction in any science, or 
in ■Awv literature, or in ■A.wy hatidicraft, but "in any study." The 
institution if it accepts my offer must have the broadest conceivable 
foundation, must be reared in a spirit of the utmost liberality, 
must have in its purpose the encouragement of all knowledge. 
Thus he declared that the institution he would found must have 
all the comprehensiveness of the old university, which had for its 
domain and its sphere nothing less than universal knowledge, and 



which, because of the universality of its scope, was called a univer- 
sity. Without his grant the institution with its |6oo,ooo from the ' 
general government might, indeed, teach agriculture and the me- 
chanic arts, without excluding classical and liberal studies ; but 
with his grant, it must put no limit to the breadth of its scope and 
the comprehensiveness of its purpose. It could never completely 
fulfill his desire till within its precincts "any person could find in- 
struction in any study." 

This was Mr. Cornell's noble conception ; this was the simple 
condition he imposed. 

The State of New York accepted this condition, and according- 
ly we find, that, without abrogating or in any way interfering with 
the purpose expressed in the general grant, that purpose was sup- 
plemented with an additional statement evidently designed to give 
scope to Mr. Cornell's comprehensive idea. After repeating the 
purpose expressed in the federal grant, this significant sentence was 
added: "but such branches of science and knowledge may be 
embraced in the plan of instruction and investigation pertaining 
to the University, as the Trustees deem useful and proper." Here 
is the warrant of its comprehensiveness. 

Now, an examination of the charter of the University, thus pre- 
pared to fulfill all the requirements of the general government on 
the one hand and of Mr. Cornell on the other, will reveal the fact 
that there are three distinct ideas incorporated in this document. 
What I believe the philosophers would call the final cause, the 
primary design of the University, was expressed in these words, 
"in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the 
industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life." 
This was the design, the final cause, and it was to be realized by 
the means indicated in the sentence declaring that the leading ob- 
ject of the corporation should be to teach such branches of learn- 
ing as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in con- 
nection with military tactics ; and then, finally, there was pointed 
out the way in which this instruction should be supplemented as 
explained in the clause which I quoted a moment ago. Here, 
then, in the charter were embodied both the ideas of the land 
grant of 1862, and the ideas of Mr. Cornell, The charter was of 



— II — 
« 

the nature of a mutual contract between the State on the one hand, 
and Mr. Cornell on the other. Mr. Cornell agreed to give I500,- 
000 on condition that the cliarter should be adopted, and, on the 
other hand, the charter expressly provided that it should become 
of binding force only after the $500,000 had been paid. Thus 
the cliarter assumed the nature of a contract of perpetual obliga- 
tion. Thus we find embodied in the form of a fundamen al law, 
both the design of the federal government and all the comprehen- 
sive desires of Mr. Cornell. 

And now I come to speak of the third factor which entered in- 
to the fundamental ideas of this University. 

In the Senate of New York with Mr. Cornell, as I have already 
said, was Andrew D. White. He was the chairman of the Commit- 
tee on Education, and to his hands was entrusted the shaping of the 
legislation that should make this grant available to the State. If 
there was any mai:i that knew what the purposes of Mr. Cornell 
were, what the spirit of the federal act was, and what the charter 
of the University really meant, Mr. White was that man. Indeed, 
the form which Mr. Cornell's ideas took was very largely, at least, 
I\Ir. White's work. Now, how does he interpret that woi-k ? After 
the charter had been adopted, it fell to his lot to draw up a Re- 
port on the Organization of the University ; and on the fourth 
page of that Report I find that he felt called upon to interpret the 
real meaning of the University, because, even then there seemed to 
be conflicting opinions as to whether we were to have simply a 
technical school or a university in the broadest sense. 

Here are his words : 

" Even if it should be claimed that the whole effort of the Trus- 
tees ought to be devoted to agriculture and the mechanic arts 
alone ; even if we should construe away the plain words of the 
original act of Congress, which speaks of ' other scientific and 
classical branches' as part of the object of the government grant 
of lands, still, the oft repeated declaration of our founder, that he 
v>'ishes to make such provision that every person can find opportu- 
nity here to pursue any study he desires, would be our sufficient 
warrant in using at least his munificent gift in supplementing the 



special instruction with general instruction and rounding it out 
into the proportions of an University." 

In these words of President White, for he had then, I beheve, 
become President, we have the most authoritative mterpretation 
possible of the meaning and the obligations of the University. His 
judgment was, that, even if all the liberal clauses of the federal 
grant were to be swept aside, we should still have sufficient warrant 
in using at least Mr. Cornell's gift in rounding out the institution 
into a University. 

And this brings us to inquire as to the extent, real and moral, 
of Mr. Cornell's gift. 

I said that he gave 1500,000, but this really was only a begin- 
ning of his devotion and liberality. When the University was 
opened, its possessions, including the federal grant and the gift of 
Mr. Cornell amounted to about $1,100,000. How did they after- 
ward come to be so largely increased ? The answer is, that it 
was chiefly through the effort of Mr. Cornell. The story is one of 
the most interesting in the history of the University, and it is one 
which enormously increases our obligations to revere his services 
and his name. 

The State, it must be remembered, could not locate the lands, 
but was obliged to sell the land scrip at whatever it would fetch. 
Mr. Cornell perceived that by judicious location of the lands an 
enormous profit could ultimately be realized either for the Univer- 
sity, or for such persons as might hold the scrip ; and so, with a 
largeness of view and a generosity of purpose, which can never be 
too much admired or too highly praised, he said to the State : "I 
will take the scrip at the market price. I will locate the lands ac- 
cording to the best judgment I possess or can command. I will 
make no charge for my services. I will give an acceptable bond 
to the Comptroller of the State to pay into the Treasury for the 
use of the University, all the profits that can be realized from the 
sale of the lands. 

The State took him at his word. He went to the Northwest, 
and wherever he could find an exceptionally valuable piece of pine 
land, he made it the property of the University. 

Thus the 990,000 acres were located. But while the Trustees 



-- 13 — 

and Mr. Cornell were waiting for the prices of pine lands to bring 
some return, the University had to live on its million of dollars. 
Large expenditures were made for buildings. Flocks of students, 
smitten with the liberal ideas of the new institution, thronged its 
doors and crowded its hmiled accommodations. Numerous pro- 
fessors were appointed, in the confident hope that a sale of lands 
could soon be made that would bring relief. But the hard times 
of '73 came on, and for eight years, Cornell University, though the 
world knew nothing of it, was silently carrying on a hard fight 
against l^ankruptcy. During that period the Trustees were con- 
fronted with this terrible alternative; either sell the lands for next 
to nothing, tlirow them away for the little pittance they would 
bring, or silently l)old on till belter times should come, paying 
meagre salaries, letting their best professors go, if need be, heed- 
less of loud complaints of alumni and other good friends, provided 
only, by hook or by crook, the institution could be tided over into 
that fair future, when a pine tree would be worth something in the 
market, and the treasury could be replenished. 

Surely, it was a heroic fight, more heroic than the world has 
ever supposed. For, again and again, the Trustees, with Mr. 
Cornell at their head, found no way of paying the salaries and the 
other bills, excepting by plunging their hands deep into their own 
pockets. At onetinre, srmply as individuals, they gave $170,000, on 
security that was worthless in the market. At another time they 
contributed 1150,000 as an absolute gift, simply to tide over the 
emergencies of the hard times. At length the resources of ]\Ir. 
Cornell gave out, and after he had broken his fortune in paying the 
taxes on these lands ; and, worse than all else, had broken his 
health in the service of the University, and in his anxiety for it, he 
said to the Trustees : "You must take this land off my hands for 
lean carry it no longer. " And as he was going down into his 
grave, still burdened with this great load, almost his last words 
were, "Don't give up my policy. The lands will yet be worth three 
millions of dollars." 

In all that struggle there were differences of opinion, but, as it 
seems to me now, there was only one moment of real weakness. 
Perhaps even that was not a moment of weakness. Consider the 



— 14 — 

real situation. The terrible times between '73 and '81 were fast 
wearing out the resources of the University. The only possible 
way of paying the bills was by using the money — \^u& principal, not 
the interest — realized from the sale of lands. It is simply truth to 
say that the University was running behind hand at the rate of 
about seventy-five thousand dollars a year. It was easy to see that 
at the rate at which the funds were going, if the hard times should 
continue, in about twelve years the whole of the capital oj^ the Univer- 
sity wotild he exhausted. This, too, you will note, was at the very 
moment when alumni and others were clamoring for the raising of 
salaries and the strengthening of the material equipment of the 
University. When affairs were in this condition an offer came of a 
million and a quarter of dollars for the timbered lands of the Uni- 
versity. Now, what was the University to do.? A million and a 
quarter of dollars would give an income of sixty or seventy thous- 
sand dollars a year. But there would be no ground ever to hope 
for an income greater than that amount. Cornell University then 
would sink at once into the rank of respectable mediocrity 
among the minor colleges of the land. But so much would at least 
be secure. 

On the other hand, what was the prospect if the lands should 
not be sold } The answer is that if the hard times should contin- 
ue, either the teaching force would have to be greatly reduced, or in 
ten or fifteen years the University would practically be without a 
dollar. If, on the contrary, business should revive, and the de- 
mand for pine lands should be greatly increased, the value of the 
property would doubtless be considerably more than the million 
and a quarter of dollars offered. Here then was the dilemma. 
Here were two considerations the one appealing to what may be 
called \}i\^ prudent t\t\i\t\\\. of the Board of Trustees, the other ap- 
pealing to what may be called the hopeful and courageous element. 
Prudence said : Sell your lands ; and put your million and a quar- 
ter of dollars into safe investments. Belter have half a loaf than 
no bread. Courage and Hope said : On the contrary, hold your 
lands ; these hard times will surely pass and a higher value will 
surely come. It is not strange that the Trustees were divided in 
opinion, as to which would be the wiser course. Who will say 



— 15 — 

that it was not better to eir on the side of extreme prudence than 
on the side of over confident hope? The considerations of pru- 
dence prevailed. A majority of the Board of Trustees decided to 
accept the offer for all the lands, requiring a deposit of a hundred 
thousand dollars within sixty days. Further time was asked for, 
and thirty days more were given. 

And now came one of those interpositions, — of chance, as some 
would call it, or, as I prefer to believe, of a kindly Providence in 
behalf of the University, — that have so often seemed to favor its 
history. The company which had agreed to take the lands at a 
million and a quarter of dollars was unable to raise the amount of 
the required deposit. The time of the second refusal elapsed and 
then the University declined to repeat the offer. Symptoms of 
better times were now a little more apparent, and the Trustees ac- 
cordingly decided to hold the lands for a higher price. The offer 
at a million and a quarter held good up to May of 1881. At the 
June meeting the Trustees voted to put up the price of the lands ; 
and before a year had elapsed it became sufficiently apparent that 
the prtiperty would sell for three or four times as much as in 1880 
it h;id been offered for. Indeed I believe that before June of 1882, 
the Trustees had made sales for some two and a quarter millions 
of dollars, and had enough left to make it certain that Mr. Cor- 
nell's figures were in no way extravagant. 

Such was the result of what may be called Mr, Cornell's policy; 
and such is Mr. Cornell's title to our grateful recognition and re- 
membiance. But for him there might, mdeed, have been, some- 
where in New York, a struggling college of agriculture and the me- 
chanic arts, but there would have been no University. As the years 
go on his title to grateful remembrance will be more and more re- 
cognized, and in any educational Walhalla that may be established 
the name of Cornell will be entitled, from every consideration, to a 
high and most honorable place. 

" Untaught, — and yet he drew 

Best learning out of life. 
More than the scholars knew, 

With all their toil and strife." 



— i6 — 

And the title he has to fame is the exact measure of the respect 
we owe to his expressed desires. As it is not ihe original giver of 
the lands of a State, that is to be regarded as the chief factor in the 
greatness of a State, but rather those who plan and accomplish its 
development, so in an educational institution, it is not the mater- 
ial possibilities, but rather the thought and the wisdom that lay- 
hold of those possibilities and develop them into actual reality that 
should awaken our highest gratitude. But when, as in the case 
of Mr. Cornell, we see that we have at once a material gift equal 
to that of the general government, and a wisdom in the care and 
enlargement of the whole, which results in making the endowment 
threefold what it otherwise v/ould have been, we begin to get a 
just measure of the obligations that rest upon us. 

Thus is the character of Cornell University defined. The 
moment tfie State accepted Mr. Cornell's gift, the institution ceased 
in any exclusive, or even predominant sense, to be a technical 
school. At that moment it became in fact, as in name, a Univer- 
sity, with all that the term implies. In the other states, where in- 
stitutions have been founded exclusively on the grant of 1862, such 
institutions have sometimes been schools simply of Agriculture and 
the Mechanic Arts. But in New York, where the State is under far 
larger obligations to Mr. Cornell than to the general government, 
it would be nothing less than a plain abuse of the trust confided to 
us, if we should cramp the scope of the University within any such 
limits. 

Fortunately, my friends, we are under no such necessity, I 
might, perhaps, say, under no such temptation. Thanks to the 
wise management of the Trustees, and I ought to add, to the wise 
generosity of such men as Cornell, and McGraw, and Sage, and 
Sibley, and Wiiite, the University has been able, at least in some 
reasonable degree, to satisfy both of these demands. 

The Technical Departments have not been neglected, and will 
not be. The department of Mechanic Arts, aside from the larger 
gifts of Mr. Sibley, has received during the past year from the gen- 
eral fund of the University, $23,500 for additional equipment 
alone. It has been put in such a condition that it is no vain 
boast to say, that within the broad scope of its activity, it is one 



— 17 — 

of the most perfectly equipped, and, even in the presence of our 
blushing Director, I may say, one of the most energetically and effi- 
ciently manned in the country. 

The kindred departments of Architectureand Civil Engineering 
had already been put into a condition of most admirable effi- 
ciency. 

The new laboratory of Chemistry and Ph3-sicshas been built and 
equipped at an expenditure of $143,900, and the Trustees have 
already committed themselves to the policy of making the corps 
of instruction entirely commensurate with the enlarged material 
equipment. 

The same spirit prevails towards the Department of Agriculture, 
I would not wrong my good friend and neighbor, Professor 
Roberts, wl)ose heart always longs for better things, by saying that 
our ambitions in an agricultural direction are fully satisfied. They 
are not. We are looking for more light and more strength, and es- 
pecially are we looking for the means of giving the results of our 
labors to tlic world. But even in our present condition, I am bold 
to challenge comparison with any other agricultural college in the 
land. So long as our Agricultural Faculty is made up of men 
like Roberts, and Caldwell, and Law, and Prentiss, and Corn- 
stock, every one of whom is an authority wherever in this country 
scientific agriculture is respected, there can be no just criticism of 
our teaching force. We may also challenge comparison in the 
matter of our material equipment. If there are any better barns, 
if any finer herd of stock, if any larger crops per acre, if any more 
neatly kept fields, I know not where among agricultural colleges 
to find them. A college thus equipped and thus manned need 
not be sensitive to petty criticism. A department that last year in 
addition to all of its teaching produced upon its own farm 40 bush- 
els of wheat per acre, 40 tons of beets per acre, and 400 bushels 
of potatoes per acre, is in no great danger from those prudent 
critics who never come to see us, and who never trouble the soil. 
It is quite possible that in one respect the Agricultural Depart- 
ment has made a mistake. It has, perhaps, set too high a mark. 
It has, possibly, undertaken to e.xact too much of its students. Ex- 
periment shows that not many farmers' sons can spend four years 



i8 



in college, unless they determine not to be farmers. Perhaps spe- 
cial courses should be oifered for the larger accommodation of those 
who are not candidates for a degree. But that is a fault, if it be a 
fault, that leans to virtue's side, and is easily corrected. Our task 
would be light indeed, if we had nothing more difficult to do than 
to lower the requirements in order to adapt them to the wants of a 
larger cliejifele. 

I have spoken thus of the Technical Departments in order to 
show that they are not suffering and are not likely to suffer at our 
hands. 

But if I am correctin my interpretation of our obligations, these 
departments must not monopolize our attention and our support. 
We must fill up the full measure of our obligations to them, but we 
must remember the larger field that must be opened, before we 
can make it otherwise than a mockery to say that Cornell is a place 
where any person can find instruction in any study. 

It has not been my purpose here to-night to forecast the future, 
to describe even the present ; but simply to explain what I conceive 
to be the nature of the obligations that rest upon us, and the spirit 
in which the future of the University ought to be developed. I 
have undertaken simply to explain what I conceive to be the sig- 
nificance and the scope of the University. 

A single word in regard to what has been done the present 
year, and I will retire into golden silence. As Carlyle says near 
the close of his French Revolution, " Courage, O patient listener ! 
I see land." 

In the course of the present year we have, I hope, done some 
good things ; but I should be unjust to my own conscience, if I 
did not say that they had almost without exception been prepared 
to our hands. Everything has gone along so easily, so absolutely 
without friction, that it seems to me the figure which will best 
describe the situation is simply to say that the fruit was ripe and 
ready to drop, and that all we have had to do has been to catch 
the fruit and carry it safely in. Under the wise and devoted hus- 
bandry of my predecessor, the ground had been so thoroughly 
prepared, the fruit had been so carefully grown, and the crops had 
been so admirably ripened, that the process of the gathering in 



— IQ — 

has been, it seems to me, a sort of recreating picnic, which has 
been easy for everybody, and which, I tliink, everybody has raiher 
enjoyed. It cannot be denied that even this humble process has 
been a busy one, but there has been no skulking, and no lack at 
any point of a spirit of hearty cooperation on the part of either 
Trustees, or Faculty, or students. 

And now, my friends, in closing, it only remains to thank you, 
as I do thank from a full heart, for this magnificent reception. 
My only regret is the absence of him whose wisdom, al'ter all, has 
had far more than mine to do with the making of whatever the 
successes of the present year have been. It is to him that your 
acknowledging and encouraging plaudits are chiefly due ; and I 
could not appropriate tliem to myself without a sense of gross 
injustice. 

And now as a final word, I would condense my whole speech 
into the sentiment : 

"Cornell University, so nobly founded by Ezra Cornell and 
so wisely moulded by Andrew D. White — may she ever be the 
patron of all knowledge, and that of the best 1 " 



